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Chinese Scientists Are Developing A Vaccine Against Cavities (nature.com)

A vaccine against tooth decay "is urgently needed" writes Nature -- and a team of Chinese scientists is getting close. hackingbear writes: Scientists at Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences developed low side effects and high protective efficiency using flagellin-rPAc fusion protein KFD2-rPAc, a promising vaccine candidate. In rat challenge models, KFD2-rPAc induces a robust rPAc-specific IgA response, and confers efficient prophylactic and therapeutic efficiency as does KF-rPAc, while the flagellin-specific inflammatory antibody responses are highly reduced.

25 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Did they rescue the princess of Canada too? by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've seen this one.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  2. NB4 Mutation! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    fuck, too late. -_-

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  3. Not just cavities by brianerst · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If this actually kills off the bacteria causing cavities, it may also get rid of the plaque biofilms that they produce. This could be a very big deal - those biofilm plaques are also a reason for arterial plaques that cause heart disease.

    1. Re:Not just cavities by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I thought that cavities were the result of bacteria breaking down leftover food in the mouth and that the bacteria doesn't attack the teeth itself, but rather byproducts of the metabolic process that the bacteria use to eat lead to decay of tooth enamel. Perhaps I have an incomplete (or outright incorrect) understanding, because if that's the case, just using some mouth wash periodically would be just as effective as a lot of that is anti-bacterial in addition to containing fluoride that can bond with your enamel to help repair damages.

      The heart disease link is certainly interesting and that's something I've never heard of before. Might you have some literature regarding that?

    2. Re:Not just cavities by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's a summary of the research. A connection has been found between gum disease and heart disease.

      Dentists are quick to assume that the mouth bacteria causes heart disease, but I've never seen that hypothesis tested anywhere. It seems more reasonable to me that when a person has heart disease, their body is weakened in general, and the body's resistance to gum disease is weakened as well.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Not just cavities by MrL0G1C · · Score: 2

      BBCs science programme 'Tomorrow's World' showed something like this vaccine three decades ago, but nothing became of it, everybody forgot about it and Tomorrows World stuff is pre-internet and I can find no info' about it. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that this got squished by affected parties.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  4. Bacteria vs Virus vs whatever. by DrYak · · Score: 2

    isn't caused by a virus.

    So, what ? You can produce anti-bodies against (and thus basically vaccinate against) nearly anything that has big enough molecules to be recognized by an antibody pouch....

    It is caused by metabolic by-products of bacteria

    You could in theory try to vaccinate against the bacteria producing them.

    bacteria practically living outside the body.

    so are antibodies : they can be secreted and thus they too can be found outside of the body.

    the current MAIN problem might end up that these bacteria, however problematic at causing cavities, still have an important role to play at training the immune system.
    you might end up with a slightly increased risk of oral cancers.
    (I think to remember something like this regarding past attempts. Must mine literature...)

    --
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  5. Worst summary ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It might as well be Egyptian hieroglyphics.

    1. Re:Worst summary ever by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      I think it is Egyptian hieroglyphics, it's just that Slashdot's Unicode support is broken...

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  6. Solved 80 years ago by Archtech · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dr Weston A. Price, a dentist practicing in the USA, travelled widely and examined people of nearly a dozen "native" cultures ranging from the Inuit and Native Americans to the Masai and other East African tribes, inhabitants of New Guinea and Peru, and people living in isolated parts of Switzerland and Scotland. Those peoples all ate traditional diets, of varying composition - some including grain and others not.

    Very few of them had any tooth decay or gum disease, and the less grain and sweet foods they ate, the less dental harm they suffered. None of them had ever brushed their teeth, and they didn't need to - except to make their breath sweeter for the sake of others.

    Immediately those same people began eating "civilized" foods - mainly white flour products and sugar - their dental health became dreadful within a few years.

    https://www.westonaprice.org/h...

    --
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    1. Re:Solved 80 years ago by Archtech · · Score: 2, Informative

      The skulls and teeth of long-dead hunter-gatherers reveal the same pattern. Very few cavities or lost teeth, excellent jaw bone formations. As soon as farming began, dental health went straight downhill along with general health.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    2. Re:Solved 80 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I am an actual archaeologist and you wouldn't believe the state some of the prehistoric skulls we find are in. With some of the things I've seen I can only surmise that apparently they didn't know to pull teeth when the situation got out of hand. I'm talking teeth rotten completely away taking big parts of the jaw with them, showing signs of partial healing so the individual must have suffered from it for quite a long time. Usually we keep skulls like that in depot because visitors don't like them, but sometimes there's hardly a complete skull available from a site.

  7. Against cavities: Cut the sweet stuff by mha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A personal anecdote - but one approved and confirmed as general dentist wisdom by a friend of mine who is a dentist.

    I always had problems with cavities, since my youth there never was a dentist visit where they didn't drill. About 7 years ago I drastically cut back on sugar, not because of teeth but because of other issues (now resolved).

    I used to be a typical German: I could not live without a bakery. I ate loads of bread, pasta, pizza (but actually good one) - and between meals not infrequently cookies or a piece of cake. I also ate quite a lot of chocolate and other sweets, always desert. LOTS and lots of fruit (self-made fruit salad!)

    Before I give you the wrong idea that I may have to mention I never had a weight issue, I was very active too..Not that you think what I'm saying only applies to obese people and so what I'm writing does not apply to others. I could easily - and I mean easily - run a half marathon (never tried more than that), just for fun.

    Anyway, my health issues forced me to experiment. To cut the story short and leave out all the experiments and everything in between, without consulting any book or "nutritionist", only learning to read and listen to what my own body was telling me, I ended up eating very few "carbs" (not the chemical meaning of the word but the kinds of foods). I almost never buy anything from the bakery, except for (very good!) white bread, which lasts two weeks or so (or even more). NO chocolate, no cake, no cookies. Very few fruits, and even less of the sweet kinds of fruits. Almost never bread, almost never pasta, almost never potatoes. NO SUGAR. Again, no extremes: I'm sure one or the other salad dressing I got when I didn't eat at home had sugar. I would not even mind eating a piece of cake now and then - if only I had any appetite for that stuff. I never do, not any more.

    I don't have to force myself to any of it, it comes naturally now!

    On the other hand, I eat a lot less meat than in the past too. Again not because of some "nutrition advice" that I follow, I really can't!

    But I could never eat something as extreme as an Atkins diet. I _do_ need carbs (that's why the white bread), just very little. I could also never go without meat, go full vegetarian. No extremes (unless "No sweets" is something you consider extreme).

    What I eat a lot more of: Fat and vegetables. Fat in the form of olive oil, nuts (lots! - what is the English word for "Nussmus"??? Darn!), cream. Quite abit of dairy, but zero milk, all in the form of cheese and other kinds of milk that went through bacterial processing.

    MY TEETH:

    I have suddenly had ZERO problems with my teeth for years! A complete change! And I don't even need to brush my teeth. Okay, for breath :-) Not a single cavity anywhere. My dentist friend just said "Of course, if you leave out the sugar that's to be expected."

    1. Re:Against cavities: Cut the sweet stuff by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      I find it interesting that in Germany this seems like a novel idea. In America, we are taught this in schools. I was shown a cartoon of various treats attacking teeth. I was warned a lot against the dangers of sugar to my teeth at a young age.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  8. Re:Fail. by cavreader · · Score: 2

    "I wonder what causes some people to be prone and others not?"
    Combination of dental hygiene, genetics, and environmental factors such as untreated water.

  9. try xylitol instead by swell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Xylitol sweetener kills h pylori, a bacteria that causes tooth decay and gastric ulcers. This has been known for a long time. Ask your toothpaste maker why they don't sweeten the product with xylitol. Note also that xylitol does not cause a big jump in blood glucose & insulin like many sweeteners. Taste is OK, better than stevia. And to top it off, you don't have to pay the premium price for a patented product.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
    1. Re:try xylitol instead by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      It kills my bunghole too. It has a side effect as a laxative.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  10. If we weren't afraid of GMOs... by Ken_g6 · · Score: 2

    I once read a story about a guy who developed bacteria that convert food into (tiny amounts of) alcohol instead of acid. He also bred them to out-compete the normal tooth bacteria. But because they're genetically engineered, they couldn't be developed for human use.

    --
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  11. Re:Fluoride rinse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I suppose that's OK, if you're willing to allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, but I for one, am not.

  12. vaccinations work fine against bacteria. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 5, Informative

    Vaccination (challenging the immune system with a substance related to the pathogen, to promote directed response, such as antibody generation) is a class of immunizations that works fine against both viruses and bacteria, and to varying degrees to other components of disease processes. Diptheriia, tetanus, and whooping cough, for example, are all bacterial diseases.

    Vaccination originally meant the specific challenge of a deliberate infection with cowpox virus (ariolae vaccinae) to promote immunity to the related smallpox virus. It has since been applied to other immunizations that involve a challenge with a related substance or a component of a killed pathogen (but not the live pathogen itself - which is "innoculation"). This usage was promoted by Pasteur, in order to honor Jenner, who developed the smallpox vaccination.

    Antibodies from the blood pass freely into saliva and remain active there, so an immunization against dental caries bacteria has been known to be possible for decades. But tooth decay bacteria are a problem for vaccine development.

    They avoid the immune system by displaying surface proteins that are similar to those on the heart. This both reduces the immune systems willingness to attack them and leads to autoimmune attacks on the heart and circulatory system if the immune system DOES go after them. (This is why dentists may prescribe prophylactic antibiotic doses before certain procedures that are likely to result in decay bacteria being transferred to the bloodstream.)

    Before molecular biology, vaccines were typically made by growing the pathogen, killing it, and producing a sterile, injectable, mixture containing its components (along with an irritant to convince the immune system there's something that needs its attention). Doing this with dental caries would lead to heart problems, so tooth decay vaccines have not been pursued until recently.

    By selecting a conserved (doesn't change much because it has to be this way to work) surface component (so the bug will have trouble evolving away from susceptibility to the immunization) that does NOT look to the immune system like some part of the body, and using that as the challenge agent, it should be possible to come up with an immunization to the common tooth decay bacteria.

    Which seems to be what is being done here.

    --
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    1. Re:vaccinations work fine against bacteria. by shaitand · · Score: 2

      Now we just have to wait to see if it survives deep pockets who want to shut it down. We've had everything from mouthwashes engineered to temporarily suppress this bacteria to genetically modified bacteria that secret an antibiotic, have an immunity to said antibiotic, and release different byproducts that do not decay teeth and thus have a complete evolutionary advantage to native populations and do not leave a void that would allow another potentially harmful bacteria to invade the deep pockets of the gums. Let's not forget a stemcell treatment that allows for implanting a fresh cell in the socket and growing an entirely new tooth. There is even a simple treatment with liquid suspension of calcium and $5 worth of hardware from radioshack that was developed in the UK and heals cavities with electrolysis.

      Why are we not all using these magical treatments to have perfect, healthy, minimal maintenance teeth that even get rebuilt by electrolysis to repair any wear and tear? It is far far more profitable to treat decaying teeth and it remains the widespread belief among dentists that cavities and decay are the result of irresponsible behavior. As long as dentists are not seen as medical doctors (despite treating a part of the body which can kill you if diseased) and therefore can't bill real insurance without a 2k/yr cap and dentists can get away with charging tens of thousands of dollars for a $2 implant (and to add insult to injury, charge it again when 50% of them don't take) and $6 for cubic zirconia dentures. They most definitely do NOT want to get rid of tooth decay and it has nothing to do with the $100 for filling the cavities at early stages.

  13. Research has been happening for some time by martinX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I talked to a group working on a vaccine for dental caries about 15 years ago. When I asked who they were targeting, the reply was head and neck cancer patients. When you get cancer in this area and go in for radiotherapy, the salivary glands are often unintended targets of the radiation and die. This, in turn, leads to massive dental caries problems in the patients, so much so that they are sometimes advised to have their teeth pulled before therapy begins.

    With the rise of highly targeted multi-beam radiotherapy, I'm not sure if the problem is still as bad as it was though. Don't smoke.

    --
    When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
  14. Of course we knew that by mha · · Score: 2

    That eating sweets was bad for the teeth is common enough knowledge pretty much everywhere. but as you can easily see, it has little to no effect on the population.

    What surprised me was the HUGE effect - that the problems went down to zero, and I'm not even doing anything extreme. I mean, I don't even try to avoid every last grain of sugar.

    Before that I would have expected for the problems to become less, maybe even much less. But down to zero??? And I can now do pretty much whatever I want, without any punishment from my teeth, as I mentioned, even not brushing teeth is okay.

    There is even more:

    I used to always have teeth that required the occasional use of special toothpaste that had a very high fluoride content. When I only used normal toothpaste - even though it still had fluoride - my teeth would soon start to hurt, just being touched by the toothbrush was painful on some teeth.

    I have been using zero(!)-fluoride toothpaste for the last couple of years! No problems at all. If I had tried that 10 years ago it would have been terrible.

    So, knowing "too much sugar is bad for teeth" did not prepare me for the shear magnitude of the effect!

  15. Remineralisation by gringer · · Score: 2

    The following tooth treatments discourage cavity-causing bacteria and encourage remineralisation of teeth:

    * Arginine-containing toothpaste -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
    * CPP-ACP-containing treatment -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

    As far as I know, the number of current manufacturers of these treatments are limited, with Colgate Pro-Argin for arginine-containing toothpaste, and GC Tooth Mousse for CPP-ACP.

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
  16. Re: Fail. by mark-t · · Score: 2

    Sorta, yeah.... but reasonably, that's the only possibility. While it's true that bacteria that causes cavities *CAN* be possibly exchanged by saliva transfer, it's something that's not particularly common, because the quantity of saliva that has to be exchanged would generally need to be pretty high (like on the order of one person practically sticking their tongue directly into the other's mouth) or else the bacteria that causes such health issues would need to be *VERY* abundant so that a smaller quantity of saliva transfer is sufficient to cause a problem.